


Two Kisses

by Harukami



Category: Tsuritama
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-08
Updated: 2015-01-08
Packaged: 2018-03-06 16:26:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3140999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Harukami/pseuds/Harukami
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time Haru kisses Yuki is (Yuki thinks) an accident; the second time is definitely on purpose.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Two Kisses

The first time that Haru and Yuki kiss is actually an accident or, at least, Yuki thinks it's an accident. They're working together outside, and Haru is dancing around with the hose like he always used to do before he left and came back, and he somehow manages to back up to where Yuki's kneeling and checking on some flowers, heel hitting him in the side. 

Yuki feels Haru pinwheel before he can even look up and shouts an alarmed "Look out!" as he drops his watering can, spinning to try to catch him. Haru lets go of the hose, which whirls around under the force of the water, spraying Yuki, causing him to lose his balance as well, and he's hardly able to keep track of what's happening between the punch of water to the face and Haru in his arms, and he just clutches him and tries to hold steady. He doesn't even recognize that Haru's mouth is on his, surprisingly soft despite the force of the fall, until Haru has pulled back. He makes a face, shaking water out of his hair.

"Whoops," Haru says.

"Don't whoops me!" Yuki stammers, going red, but it was an accident, after all, and making a big deal about these things involves having to explain why he'd _want_ to make a big deal, and that's too much work, so he just makes sure Haru is okay and lets him go. "Watch where you're going, Haru, jeez."

"Sorry, so sorry," Haru says, laughing. "Yuki, you're wet!"

"You got me with the hose!"

"I did, I did," Haru says, and goes to catch the hose again, to pick it up and go back to watering. He's humming to himself, apparently completely unconcerned about his fall.

It's hours later, when they're in class, that Yuki remembers Haru's perfect balance, Haru's pretend slip aboard the Seishunmaru turning into show-off handsprings and back flips, and finds himself thinking, in sudden alarm,

_What_?

***

Yuki knows what he wants the answer to be but knows, also, that it's pretty much impossible. He tries to dismiss the thought, but finds himself turning it around and around in his head, over and over, what Haru meant, why Haru might do it, whether it was one of Haru's infamous misunderstandings. He strongly suspects it is one, that it must be one. Haru has difficulty with that kind of thing, after all. Still, he can't stop worrying at it, wistful and annoyed.

He asks Urara later, but tries to be subtle about it: "I was just wondering, uh, this is probably weird..."

"Is it?" Urara gives him a wide-eyed look of alarm, as though he isn't sure if he's prepared to handle anything weird. As if he can talk...!

"I was wondering if your people, you know, kissed," Yuki says.

"We don't kiss," Urara says. He adds, helpfully, "Humans kiss, though. If you need advice about kissing, you should probably go to a human."

Yuki sighs. "Thanks," he says. "I appreciate it."

"...Did you want to kiss me?" Urara asks, wide-eyed, leaning forward. "We don't kiss but, the thing is, we probably can, if we wanted to. Since this form is identical to a human's. In our other form, we don't, and underwater it's a little..."

"You know what kissing is, though," Yuki says, strangled. "Sorry. No, I mean, no. I don't. I was just curious. Sorry if I. If I miscommunicated."

"Oh," Urara says. Then, "Of course I know. It's part of romance, isn't it? I watch TV. And I've been around a while."

Sure, around in the ocean causing trouble, not studying human romance, Yuki thinks, but doesn't say. "Okay. Well. Thanks."

***

The second time Haru tries to kiss him definitely proves the first was deliberate, because he's about to go to sleep and he hears the door open. The whispered sound-effects of someone tiptoeing makes him sure, immediately, that it's not his grandmother who'd just entered his room.

"Haru, what are you doing?"

"Geh! Yuki's awake!"

"I'm awake." He rolls away from the wall to look at Haru, who rubs the back of his head and laughs. "Haru..."

"I wanted to see your sleeping face," Haru says, in the too-bright tone he gets when he's lying.

"Keep your voice down," Yuki says. He sits up slowly; although not an invitation, it clears a space and Haru prances across the floor and slings himself down to sit next to Yuki, legs swinging. "What were you really doing?"

Haru lets out a soft whine, dropping his head forward, watching his legs swing. "...I wanted to kiss you."

It's straight-forward enough that Yuki isn't expecting it, even suspecting that Haru might have something like that in mind, even wishing he'd hear it in that kind of straight-forward way. He makes a choking sound, trying to find what to say, and eventually settles on: "Haru, you can't kiss people without their permission."

"They do it in movies aaaall the time."

"Movies aren't good examples of healthy relationships," Yuki says, strangled. "Movie relationships are meant for drama. And that aside, we're not _in_ a relationship, so you can't just assume--"

"You need to be in a relationship to kiss?"

Yuki wonders if he has, in fact, fallen asleep and this is all a weird dream brought on by eating too much whitebait. "No," he says. "But I'd rather be than have someone just try to steal kisses from me."

Haru puts his hands on his own knees, clenching them, and because Yuki's looking down at that, when Haru lifts his head to look up at him, he finds himself inches away from Haru's earnest, strangely-scared face.

"Yuki," Haru says, his tone thin and reedy and wistful, "do you want to be in a relationship with me?"

"I --" Yuki swallows. "Are you asking me out?"

"I'm... I'm asking what Yuki wants," Haru says, a whine starting to enter his voice. "Yukiiii, tell meeee."

Yuki sighs, slow and drawn-out. He wants to be upset, wants to blow Haru off, wants to scorn him, wants to quiet the pounding in his chest any way he can that doesn't feel like false hope. But he also doesn't think he can. Not when Haru is giving him that look. Haru's always strangely pretty when he's serious, and, worse, when he's hurting. When he's thoughtless and carefree he's just kind of there, but in moments like this...

"Do you even," Yuki begins, unsteadily. "Do you know what relationships entail?"

"You love each other," Haru says promptly. "You care for each other in little ways, like, the feeling in your chest, you water that the way you water the flowers, and you turn over those feelings and make sure they're being treated right, and you do that by how you act with the other person. And sometimes things aren't good, and you need to prune the dead flower heads away so that what you have can grow right again."

Despite himself, Yuki gives a wobbly smile. "You've been talking to Granny."

"I always talk to Kate," Haru says. "But, Yuki, those are my thoughts. It's not..." He pauses, then puffs his cheeks out, frustrated. "It's not the same back home, but it is! Things are easier, maybe? Like with friendship, and family. Our minds hum together, so we don't need to think about _everything_ the way humans do all the time. But even if it's different, we _have_ the same feelings. We _have_ friends and family and lovers, Yuki! It's just different. It's just figuring out how humans do it and not messing up and wanting to share that feeling and..." Frustrated, his voice rises into a wordless whine.

Yuki swallows, puts a hand on Haru's head. "Haru."

"Humans are _hard_ , but good! I don't _understand_ because I can't layer my mind into their minds, and they can't layer theirs into mine, but I _want_ to understand, and I've done okay with friendships, haven't I? Can't I do okay with relationships too?"

A little unsteady, Yuki says, "You've done perfectly with friendship, Haru. I know. I didn't mean to say you didn't have those feelings because you're an alien? I know you do. You love your friends and your sister and--"

"And you," Haru says. "I love you, Yuki."

The words he were going to say die in his mouth, try to find life and just fall off his tongue in sounds that don't make sense. He freezes where he is, fingers in Haru's hair, Haru staring up at him.

"I love you," Haru says. "For a long time, but, you know, finding names for things you don't need names for because your feelings are just supposed to bounce off each other, that's hard. Humans don't have feelings they can bounce. I don't have words to send my feelings out instead of just doing it. I'm sorry I stole kisses, Yuki. They did it in movies, as a way to show their feelings without words. I use a lot of words but even if I use hundreds they're never as good as a thought. But that's okay. I'd rather stumble over thousands and thousands, and like, maybe, millions of words? Are millions of words okay? It's okay if it's to make my feelings connect with Yuki's. Right?"

Yuki is embarrassed, more than anything else, by the way everything inside him is shaking, by the sense of burning behind his eyes, by how weakly his voice comes out when he tries to make it. "Right..."

"I want to take care of these flowers," Haru says, "for as long as you live."

So Yuki kisses him. It's his first _real_ kiss, if he puts aside the one Haru stole, and he probably doesn't actually know much more about it than Haru does, really, just what he's seen and read and heard about, so it's sloppy and awkward and their teeth clack and they bump noses, but it's Haru's mouth on his, Haru's soft lips working at his, Haru making little crooning noises.

He wonders, briefly, if it's frustrating for Haru, kissing someone he can't mesh minds with, if he feels literally like a fish out of water, doing things that aren't naturally how he'd express himself to try to get his feelings across, if it's bad, if it's not something that Haru actually wants beyond what it means, but when the kiss breaks and he opens his mouth to try to ask, Haru lets out a little sound of _want_ in his throat, leaning up and kissing again, tongue flicking wetly against Yuki's mouth, a little weird, a little odd, but good, really. 

Great, really.

They kiss and kiss until kissing starts to feel natural, until he feels like he knows what he's doing, until the flickering warmth inside him is growing too strong, too fast, and he has to stop so that he can take this at some kind of reasonable pace, pulling away and sucking air and --

"Oh," Haru says, hand pressed to Yuki's chest and gazing up at him. "Yuki."

"We should stop," Yuki says.

"Why...?"

"Just," Yuki says, and swallows. "Let's not rush."

Haru gets a confused look again, the look of someone who understands the words but not the intentions, but nods. "Okay," he says. "We won't rush."

"I mean, sex."

"Oh," Haru says. His face lights up. "Can we?"

"I just said-! Let's not rush," he stammers, and he has a whole boatload of questions, what Haru does and doesn't know about human sex, whether just because he has a human-like form he'll have the right expectations or -- whatever. But he can't go asking Urara that and maybe, he thinks, it's fine if they just talk about it properly, to each other, in advance.

"Right," Haru says. "No rushing. But when you want to, I want to."

"D-do you."

Haru grins, leans up, and kisses Yuki's nose. "No rushing, Yuki," he says, and pulls away, dancing backward toward the door. He's red-cheeked and moving like he's got no weight at all and he's -- well. Not uninterested, at least. 

Yuki jerks his gaze up.

"Goodnight, Yuki. I love you," Haru says.

The words almost strangle in his throat. "I -- l -- I love you too," he manages. "Goodnight, Haru, um--"

Haru makes it to the doorway, stops, leans back in. "You kissed me, so we're in a relationship now, right? Yuki's my boyfriend, right?"

Suddenly, everything seems to lighten. Well, whatever, he thinks. They'll work it out as they go. Why over-think it?

"Yeah," Yuki says.


End file.
